D Warneri Biography

Guarneri "del-juzu", Antonio Stradivari. How much is the most expensive violin in the world? The tool is notable not only with a record price, but also by its history: the great performers of the 20th century Joegudi Menukhin, Itskhak Perlman and Pinhas Tsukerman played on this violin. Such auctions happen infrequently and always attract public attention, which the tool as such is usually undeservedly deprived of.

After all, people who turn to the classics first of all choose what to listen, sometimes in whose performance, but extremely rarely pay attention to which instrument the musician plays. The violin Garnery Del Jesu “Vietan”, this violin, named after the famous Belgian violinist and the composer of the 19th century, Henri Voetan, was made by the Cremonian master three years before his death.

Before Vyotan, who played on it in the last 11 years of his life, the French master Jean-Batist Viim owned the violin, who bought it from a certain doctor Bencieger from Switzerland in the year. The tool was bought for him by a cousin, a businessman and founder of one of the colleges of Oxford Isaac Wolfson. After the death of Newman in the year, the violin was acquired by the philanthropist and connoisseur of music by Ian Stutsker, to whom it still belongs.

This is one story, actual. In fact, the names of those who could not only extract aesthetic pleasure from possessing an instrument, but also share it, playing on this violin, are known much better than the above. As often happens, most violin owners did not play on it and were not musicians at all, but they led them an instrument. So Menukhin, Perlman, Tsuckerman, Cruisler and many others - famous or not very - soloists have the opportunity to use Vyotan as a concert tool.

The price of this particular violin of the Warneri is easy to be surprised, because, such is the stereotype, for any educated person the standard of violin is the Anthony Stradivari tool.

It is stupid to argue that this master was one of the best artisans of creamy, but experts compare its best violins with vanilla ice cream, while Guarneri del Jesu instruments in culinary definitions are closest to good dark chocolate. Yes, and the life of Warneri, who died at the age of 46, was twice as short as Stradivari's life, and in the world there was only about his violins - several times less than the instruments of his more famous competitor.

A dessert comparison quite accurately reflects the difference between the violins of these two famous Italians. If Stradivarre is primarily alive, light, articulated and capable of tone, then the Warneri tools sound, in comparison, deeper and harder. Maybe that's why one of the violins of the Guarneri is perhaps the most famous Il Cannone Guarnerius was a favorite tool of Niccolo Paganini, who lived far from a rainbow life until his death.

Paganini, who, by the way, also owned several violins of Stradivari, also played an important role in the popularization of the named after the Warneri, who was almost forgotten after death. In one of his letters, Jehudi Menukhin admitted that he prefers Vyetan, on which he managed to play, his own violin Stradivari of the year. In addition, Maestro possessed another Warneri tool - the Lord Wilton violin.

The preference of a performer of such a scale as Menukhin is an important evidence of the true price of the violin, expressed not at all in monetary units. Because any outstanding instrument, as well as an outstanding musical work, in the hands of the performer is not so much a means that transforms signs into sounds, but, on the contrary, the music itself, for which the performer is only a means.

And the nature of the tool often depends on what execution will turn out. Of course, in scientific circles they never particularly trusted what could not be explained, including the presence of a meta -containing in several pieces of wood and tended over them. Since the violin repertoire has become rich enough for the violin to be one of the main solo tools, exquisite tests do not stop, designed to determine whether there is some difference between the tools.

Moreover, these tests, in which musicologists, experts and virtuosos participate, as a rule, end with the fact that even the best experts confuse, where is the stadivaries, where is the warehouses, and where is just a good factory violin. In order to justify the uniqueness of a particular tool, scientists are trying to explain the sound quality of one or another objective argument.

The sound of ancient violins, for example, was attributed to a very high density of the tree from which they were made. There are also theories according to which a special sound of violins of the XVII - XVIII centuries gives a special composition adhesive, trees from a certain geographical region, cunning varnishing and so on. Scientists prefer the advantages of the instrument to the exceptional skill of its creator in the last turn.Over the years, new and new means are becoming available for evidence of scientific assumptions: X -ray, dendrochronology, biochemical analysis, laser vibromometers and much more.

However, even if scientists are still right and a good violin for a good violin is really not discord, there is another aspect, aesthetic. For some reason, after all, Paganini played precisely on the Warneri violin. Any excellent instrument produced by one or another master or even a factory has a history of creation, behind him is always a reputation, and hence the character of a person or company.

Moreover, many famous manufacturers began to make musical instruments when they had not yet acquired a modern look, and formed them with their own hands. Of course, if desired, it is easy to call it myth -making for one more, unscientific reason: the income of the owner of a rare tool directly depends on the establishment of such differences. As the famous exposure of the world of classical music, Norman Lebrecht, would rightly noted this.

Humanly, however, this also means a denial of the difference in tools with different character, created by people with different characters. Playing on which people also have unequal ones. Therefore, it will be very unfortunate if the “Vetan” Guarneri, who risks becoming the most expensive musical instrument in the world, will buy not some kind of hunting for music, but a Japanese museum.

And for visitors to the museum, the value of this violin will be reduced to audio recordings in headphones, once paid for it 18 million dollars and two paragraphs of the text on a sign with a description of the exhibit. After all, the violins of the great masters were distinguished by some common properties that arose under the arms of a particular master, as well as the individuality of the “voice”: it is not for nothing that the most outstanding tools themselves gave individual names!

When the master had previously developed strategic considerations about the general musical and mechanical parameters of the created tool, it all started with the choice of material and preparing it to create parts of the violin and then, after embracing and fitting all the components to each other, ended with a thin refinement of the assembled tool through changing small mechanical-geometric parameters with concomitant control of sound, after which the tool It was covered with special varnish, the secret of which was also a special secret.

In fact, the secret of any tool to no less than all craft secrets made up the individual qualities of the master’s hearing: before there were no devices and the qualitative side of the sound of the instrument was determined by ear and depended exclusively on the taste of the master. It is important to understand this feature of ancient tools: all of them have become the fruit of the work of intuition and hearing activity of the masters who created them.

From here, by the way, many individual features of the sound of instruments of different masters are displayed, who are perceptible “rumors” determine by ear. For the same reason, whole instrumental ensembles ordered the same master, so that he can already provide a good acoustic combination of their sonority and timbres at the stage of creating and collections of tools in a joint game, just as the artist creates paintings united by the community of the plot, style and color palette, in their organic combination when placed in the same place interior.

By the way, when about 30 years ago there were interesting discussions about the “secrets” of Stradivari, which researchers, armed with modern instruments and research methods, were looking for either in the design of its tools, then in their geometry, then in the method of processing it, then in the varnish, etc. Even when the tool was almost ready, the master was slow, doubted everything, everything checked something, checked something, checked something.

He finished, undermined, polished, listening to the finest changes in the sound-that is, on the finish line, he still had some ways to influence the parameters of the instrument, which allowed to influence the sound through mechanical factors. I believe that with all the importance of all previous stages, which, in fact, ensuring the high class of the tool, the possibility of varying its small parameters, there were still some opportunities to give the instrument of individuality.

You won’t jump above your head, as they say, but the tool could turn out worse than it was laid in its nature, and this is very undesirable! Yes, I’m sure that the master already at the early stages understood whether the tools he created, good or outstanding by him, would become the work, but when he saw that his creation was gaining his voice, he tried with all his might to show this personality, to fool the material that passed through his hands.In a sense, this resembles the identification and grinding of the vocalist’s voice under the guidance of an experienced teacher: you never know in advance what comes from a particular singer, but when it becomes clear in which direction you need to go, when the range most convenient for singing tessature is clarified, then you can already work on fixing and deepening achieved, grind the technique, breathing, and breathing.

Sound power, expand the repertoire, etc. In short, working with the material when creating the tool came down to identifying its cash potential, the ceiling of the capabilities of which was set by nature itself, and the master had to guess it, identify and not lose in the process of refinement. Actually, this was the "secret" of ancient masters. A few words about Stradivari ...

The most famous violin master Antonio Stradivari was born in a year in a crescent. It is known that already at the age of thirteen, he began to engage in violin. By the year, he graduated from the famous master of bowing instruments Andrea Amati. Stradivarivarivari made his first violin in the year, but for more than 30 years he was looking for his own model. Only at the beginning of the years did the master designed his, still unsurpassed violin.

It was elongated in shape and had a fracture and irregularity inside the corps, so the sound was enriched due to the appearance of a large number of high overtones. Stradivarvy made a fundamental deviations from the developed model Antonio already near the tools from this time, but experimented until the end of his long life. Stradivari died in the year, but his violins are still very highly appreciated, they practically do not age and do not change their “voice”.

During his life, Antonio Stradivarvari was made near the tools, of which 63 cello and 19 altas were preserved undoubtedly genuine, including violin. In addition to the bow, they also made one harp and two guitars. It is generally recognized that its most best tools were made from the year and the best in the year. They are especially rare and therefore are appreciated very highly by both musicians and collectors.

Many Stradivarre tools are in rich private collections. There are about two dozen violins in Russia in Russia: several violins are in the state collection of musical instruments, one in the Glinka Museum where it was handed over to David Ostrakh, who, in turn, received it as a gift from the English Queen Elizabeth and a few more in private ownership. Scientists and musicians around the world are trying to unravel the secret of creating violins.

Even during his life, the masters said that he sold his soul to the devil, even said that a tree from which several of the most famous violins were made are the wreckage of Noah's ark. There is an opinion that the Straidivari violins are so good that a real tool begins to sound really good only after two two hundred years. Many scientists conducted hundreds of violin studies using the latest technologies, but they have not yet managed to unravel the secret of violins.

It is known that the master soaked the wood in sea water and exposed it to complex chemical compounds of plant origin. At one time, it was believed that the secret of Stradivari is in the form of a tool, later they began to give great importance to the material that is constant for the violin violins: for the upper decree, for the lower - maple. They even believed that the whole thing is in varnishes; Elastic varnish covering violin violins allows decks to resonate and “breathe”.

This gives the timbre a characteristic “voluminous” sound. According to legend, the Cremonian masters prepared their mixtures from the resins of some trees that grew up in those days in the Tyrol forests and soon completely cut down. The exact composition of those varnishes has not been installed to this day - even the most sophisticated chemical analysis was powerless here.

In the year, the biochemist Joseph Nigivar from the University of Texas announced that the secret of Stradivari had unraveled. The scientist came to the conclusion that the special sound of the bow became the result of the master’s efforts to protect them from the tree. Nigivara found out that during the creation by the master of violins, wooden blanks were often affected by the tree, and Stradivari to protect unique musical instruments, resorted to the storm.

This substance, as it were, soldered wood molecules, changing the general sound of the violin. When Stradivari died, the victory over the tree in Northern Italy was already won, and later the drill was no longer used to protect the tree. Thus, according to Nigivara, the master took the secret to the grave with him.